1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to computer systems, and more particularly relates to automatically selecting and importing information from a network resource, and formatting the information for use by a local processing resource.
1. Description of Related Art
The globally accessible computer network known as the Internet is a vast resource of information, much of which is available at no direct cost. A local computer can connect to a distant server, request a file or an image from the server, and receive the requested information immediately without a direct charge for the value of the information.
One popular technology enjoying wide use with the Internet is known as the World Wide Web. The World Wide Web enables a computer to locate a remote server using a server name in an agreed-upon format that is indexed at a central Domain Name Server (DNS); the computer can then establish a connection to the server and retrieve information using a communication protocol called the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). A Uniform Resource Locator (URL) uniquely identifies each page of information stored on the remote server. A URL is a form of network address that identifies the location of information stored in a network. The local computer requests information by providing a request containing a URL of the desired information to the remote server. The pages of information are files prepared in the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML).
As use of the World Wide Web has soared, many different sources of free information have become available. The information is free in the sense that the server that provides the information makes no direct charge to an end user who requests or receives the information.
One type of free information service is a directory service. A directory service is a remote server coupled to a database containing names, addresses, telephone numbers and other information about businesses and individuals derived from public telephone directories and other sources. Exemplary directory servers include the xe2x80x9cfour11xe2x80x9d telephone directory server identified by the URL http://www.four11.com/, http://www.Bigbook.com/, http://yp.gte.net/, http://www.Bigyellow.com/. Some systems offer free access to database of individual address information, effectively operating as free xe2x80x9cwhite pagesxe2x80x9d services. Other systems provide free access to databases of business address information, effectively operating as globally accessible, free xe2x80x9cYellow Pagesxe2x80x9d directories.
Using any Web browser program, a user can connect to these systems, provide a query, and receive information, such as a set of names, addresses, and telephone numbers. The user""s local computer can make an HTTP connection using a browser to the remote server of a directory service. The user commands the browser to retrieve a home page of the remote server. The user enters a query in the home page to request a set of information from the database and returns the query with the home page to the server. The server parses the query, interrogates the database according to the query, receives a set of records from the database, formats the records by placing them in a template document prepared in the HTML language, and delivers the completed HTML document containing the records to the local computer.
After the information is received in an HTML document displayed by the browser, the set of names can be displayed one HTML page at a time using the browser, cut from each HTML document, pasted into a file prepared with a text editor or word processor program, and manually edited into a mailing list.
Alternatively, the set of names can be cut from the HTML document, stored in a text file using a word processor, edited to add field delimiters between values of each record, and provided as input to a mailing list management program. Each of these steps is manually performed, separately. The mailing list management program reads the text file, separates records and values by identifying the field delimiters, and places the values in a pre-defined mailing list database. The mailing list management program can then generate mailing labels, form letters, reports, and other documents using the mailing list database.
While directory services provide information that can be used to manually build a mailing list from free information available over a network, the approaches described above have several significant disadvantages. For example, manually building a mailing list using cut-and-paste editing operations with a word processor is tedious, time-consuming, and error-prone. It is desirable to provide an automatic way for a user to define desired free information, retrieve the free information from a remote server over a network, and format the information into a form usable by a local processing resource.
Also, directory services have the disadvantage that considerable time is required to format information received from the directory service. Further, additional time is needed to instruct a local processing resource how to receive the formatted information. Therefore, it is also desirable to provide an automatic way to carry out these steps and provide the resulting list to a local processing resource for subsequent use.
Further, as the number of Web servers has increased, it has become more difficult for a person exposed to several different Web servers or URLs to keep track of the names of each Web server and its URL for later use. Many URLs are quite long and need to be spelled with 100% accuracy to be useful. They include unusual typed characters such as colons, backslashes and xe2x80x9c@xe2x80x9d characters. These characters and other parts of the URL must be remembered and reproduced correctly, or the URL cannot be used successfully to retrieve a Web page.
For all these reasons, there is a need for methods, apparatus and products that can request and retrieve information from a remote source; format the information for local use; and pass the formatted information for local use. There is also a need for such methods, apparatus and products that can retrieve such information in an automatic way, and automatically format the information for use by a local processing resource.
The invention provides a method, apparatus, and computer program product for importing information from a network resource. In one embodiment, a method according to the invention comprises the steps of storing selection criteria in a memory coupled to a local processing resource; requesting the information from the remote resource according to the selection criteria; receiving the information from the remote resource over the network; and providing the information to the local processing resource in a format usable by the local processing resource. One feature of this embodiment is connecting to the remote resource using an application program driven by the local processing resource. In one aspect, the application program is a browser, and the browser is driven using a bridge. In another aspect, the browser is driven by the local processing resource using OLE Automation.
Another feature of the invention is storing, in the memory, a list of remote information sources located on the network, and a profile describing a format of information at one of the remote information sources. In one aspect, the information at the remote information source is converted from one format to a second format usable by the local processing resource according to the profile. In another aspect, an import function of the local processing resource is invoked, and using the import function, the information is stored in the second format in a database coupled to the local processing resource. In yet another aspect, the profile is retrieved from a central data storage location on the network.
Another feature of the invention is providing the information by executing a browser, and commanding the browser using the local processing resource to connect to the remote information source over the network.
Still another feature of the invention is storing a query in a Web page in a storage device coupled to a browser. In one aspect, requesting the information involves submitting the Web page to a Web server using the browser. In another aspect, receiving the information includes receiving an output Web page into the Web browser over the network. In yet another aspect, providing the information involves writing a raw mailing list derived from the output Web page on the storage device, formatting the raw mailing list into a formatted list based upon a format of a database coupled to a mailing list manager, and importing the formatted list into the database of the mailing list manager using an import function of the mailing list manager.
The invention also encompasses a computer apparatus and a computer program product having the foregoing features and aspects.